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Oompa-Loompas
Oompa-Loompas are strange small people from the Wonka franchise. Oompa-Loompas originated from the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They left their homeland to work in Wonka's factory once they heard they would be paid in cacao beans, as Oompa-Loompas crave them. History The Oompa-Loompas once lived in Africa (changed to Loompaland in a later edition), fighting for their lives against creatures called Hornswaggers, Snozzwangers, and Wangdoodles who would eat Oompa-Loompas. The Oompa-Loompas would generally eat mashed caterpillars, which tasted revolting. They would try to mash things into the caterpillars to make them taste better, including eucalyptus leaves, beetles, and the bark of the bong-bong tree. All of these tasted bad but not as bad as the caterpillars. They longed for cacao beans, which is a real-life bean that is the major ingredient for chocolate. The cacao bean was the treasure of the Oompa-Loompas since it tasted so great and because they grew to comply in the land they lived in, but a rarity among them since the monsters kept the Oompa-Loompas from reaching them. Willy Wonka travelled into Loompaland looking for new flavors for his candy bars but came across the easily exploitable Oompa-Loompas. He offered them jobs at his factory, because of all the cacao beans he had, and the Oompa-Loompas excitedly followed him. They currently work in the chocolate factory as the only employees Wonka has. They live in the factory as well, possibly having specific "rooms" in the factory geared towards the lifestyle of Oompa-Loompas. In the book, Wonka and the remaining tourists were travelling in the Great Glass Elevator and saw a little village where the children were playing. Culture The Oompa-Loompas used to live in huts in the trees to avoid all the terrible creatures, but Wonka's offer changed all that. They now live in the factory. In the 2005 film, Oompa-Loompas were seen worshiping cacao beans and wearing them as masks for festivals. It is not known if they worshipped cacao beans as gods in the books, but it is likely. They also had a language that consisted of strange noises and childish gestures, including putting the hand under the armpit and making a farting noise. Aside from their love of chocolate, the Oompa-Loompas love singing. In the book, they would sing long songs filled with eight-syllable lines, usually rhyming in pairs. In the first film, these songs were changed to riddles that usually began with "Oompa-Loompa doopa-dee-doo. I have another puzzle for you." In the second film, the composer Danny Elfman, known for many other Tim Burton films, took the original songs from the book and put a separate style within each one. Elfman sang all of this material. Many of the voices he recorded were meant as guide tracks to be replaced later in the mix, but Burton intervened and instructed Elfman not to replace them. Oompa-Loompas have been described as mischievous and have a tendency to laugh at absolutely nothing, taking even the tiniest occurrences as big jokes. Despite this, Wonka describes them as wonderful workers. Appearance They look exactly like each other, but their design changes throughout each version. In the book, their skin color and hair color changed through many editions but the one thing that remained was they still wore the same things they did in Loompaland. The men wore deer skin, the woman was leaves, and the children wore nothing. In the original edition, they were simply African in design because their original homeland was in Africa. In later editions, their appearance was changed to a white race with flowing blonde hair, possibly to avoid any racial insensitivity due to black men being workers in a large factory. In the first film, the Oompa-Loompas had orange skin and green hair, like carrots. The hair style was always swirled. They wore brown shirts with white and brown striped wrists and collars, and white aprons over them. They also wore white gloves. Their appearance has become very iconic in popular culture. As an example, Futurama had an episode spoofing the Willy Wonka movie, and the Oompa Loompas (who looked exactly like the ones in the 1971 film) were renamed Crunka-Lunkas. In Nestle Wonka commercials, the Oompa-Loompas maintain this appearance. In the second film, the Oompa-Loompas were all played by the same actor, Deep Roy, who played all the Oompa-Loompas, including a female Oompa-Loompa named Doris. The voices for the Oompa-Loompas were provided by Danny Elfman. In the film, they were Kenyan in appearance and originally wore tribal clothes. In the factory, they wore uniforms of different colors; most notably red, yellow, and blue. Category:Characters Category:Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory